Ice Breaker Part 7
December '01 (all parts re-written Feb '02)

This and the last part were written the same week, and sent out rather quickly. It had been a long delay - I had planned the hotel bombing, then lost track of time, then September happened and I just didn't want to do any more of this whole story. I couldn't go back and change anything, I needed the trouble what happens with the hotel's destruction for several important parts coming up further in the story. I just . . . waited. Anyway, here you go. - Gok

Feedback to h_raelynn@hotmail.com
Return to Stories Page

*Emphasis*
[thoughts and telepathy]

****

More than a few hours had since passed, but not enough to call them many. Unless you were the determined young woman who'd commandeered a pair of crutches and a ride, and was now making her way through the scattered crowd and rescue command tents; then it would have been too many hours no matter how short the time was. She was almost stopped once, by reporters eager for a chance to talk to her, but it only took two examples to make the rest of them pull back to merely take pictures from what they judged was a safe distance. She kept moving, even when she saw the battered skeleton of one wall rising barren above the rubble, and the swarms of people and equipment moving with all haste to dig out anything and everyone left. She kept up her slow pace, circling gradually until she saw the face she wanted, then picked up a little bit of speed until she got to his side, wheezing painfully and wet with fresh trickles of blood.

"Levi. Talk t'me."

Levi Steele had watched her heave herself along the busy street, through the police and rangers and tents and cordons to keep traffic away, and continued to try to keep his part of things under control. A botanist and agricultural recruiter, he was both a widowed father of several telepaths and a normal. He was also too stubborn to force out of the way, so he was acting as the link between the remaining envoy members and the local telepaths drafted who were all doing their best to scan for victims trapped in the rubble. He just gave Rashelle a brief look, the expression saying more than three dozen words. "Yur bleedin," he mentioned instead.

"I know. I don't care."

"There's fresh blood on top of old blood. I ought to make you see a medic here."

"You've got bandages on, too. Shut up and talk t'me."

He'd already known that she'd refuse medical help, so he let the issue drop. "We've accounted for over a hundred people already. Most are injured. Some are serious, and some will die. Some are already dead. Two of the storage sites were hit - nothing irreplaceable was lost, though, and no lives or animals. The guard on them, and the other stores and ships have been increased. And we're gathering up from the wreckage what items we can - personal things, papers, reports, organic tech. There are a lot more people still under there - we can sense some, have touched a few to reassure them. As fast as we can, we do."

"I want the *important* information. Have they found her yet, Levi. Have they even found a trace?"

"Shannon's still under there somewhere."

"Not Shannon, you Jackass! If she'd been found you wouldn't be here still! Where is *Lyta*? The entire mission is trapped out here in mundania if she dies, final, fineto, done. The ones that won't stay sane, the ones that will die from the silence, the ones who would be fine even if they can't return, all of us. Pit-cka-ro, total loss, nada result."

Levi gave her a level stare, but the rolled map he was crumpling up in his fists gave away what he was feeling as much as the emotions he radiated.

"Of course, you knew that." Rashelle stopped talking, and leaned wearily on her crutches, watching them lift away rubble and dust, hearing the machines and shouting and below it all, too softly to pick up without actively scanning, the faint sounds of the minds under the mess. Feeling sicker than even, she suddenly lurched around, yanked the map from his hands, and crutched over to a table to lay it out. It was a floorplan, and had been littered with penmarks on who was found where and what was blocking what and a few notes to where they had placed a still-buried victim by triangulation scans. It was the people that had died right away, or had passed out before the telepathic searchers had located them, that kept coming up surprises. The ones who'd been awake and contacted before they lost consciousness or died, the diggers knew the location of. But there were still surprises. Too many of them, and the technological scanners were next to useless, because so many areas of the rubble were unscannable - either from leftover bits of the hotel's security tech that made the readings gibberish, or from the few pieces of organic technology that the envoy team had brought. Without access to the primary power node, they couldn't even use the implanted trackers to find envoy members.

They had prepared for a great many things, but having a building with over 400 normal locals in and around it completely levelled by missiles had not been something they'd considered. The damage to the surrounding buildings, too, was incredible. . . And some of the team that was off-world for various reasons had not been contacted, though Rashelle did not know the exact cause. The Rangers were already beginning to hunt - over 30 of the dead pulled out so far, and more that were hurt, had been Anla'Shok. Few things pissed off the Rangers like the deaths of their own kind.

The body of one of them, Charles Anderson, had been one of those. They had found Lauren Kyle, as well, but she had been mostly inside of the same air pocket that Rashelle was in, and the doctors hoped she would survive. But even if she did, it would be a very long time before Lauren could again take an assignment. Rashelle had not let herself cry, she had work to do and little enough time to do it in before the cursed addiction she carried shut her down to die.

She closed her eyes to concentrate as much as to block out the sight before her. [She was on the fourth floor, right at the top and the edge, she shouldn't be too deeply underneath,] she thought, then reached out to connect with the other telepaths searching. [I need to help.] Most of the victims were unconsciousness - she had no way to sense those - but the ones who were awake were not too hard to track down, as long as they weren't too deeply buried. All she had to do was feel for the pain and fear.

****

Zack gradually recovered consciousness in an air pocket, and wondered at his luck for a few moments while he forced himself to stay calm and think his way through this. It was pitch black, cramped, the air was thin and dusty and hard to breathe, and his arm hurt - he wasn't able to move it. [I must have landed on it,] he figured. [Ow.] Why wasn't he injured any further? He remembered the missile, an explosion - falling - Lyta had done something while they fell, he had a bizarre memory of things impacting an invisible shell around them - was telekinesis possible on such a level? [Hell, If anyone could do it, Lyta could have- Lyta! Where was she?] Feeling around frantically, he located another body - warm, breathing shallow, and half-under him.

[Oh Shit! I landed on her!] Lifting himself off as fast as he could, he smashed his head on the top piece of debris and fell back down - a new storm of dust rained as he managed to brace his knees on either side of her in the narrow space. Coughing miserably, he lifted off as much of the smaller bits of junk as he could, checking her for bleeding and injuries by feel, unable to shift around or see or even straighten up.

[Stay calm breathe evenly stay calm breathe evenly . . . some stupid piss-ass guard I make, don't I? Stay calm breathe evenly . . .] Her pulse was very weak and was getting weaker, he couldn't feel where she was bleeding but he could smell the blood very strongly, even with the dust. Turning around as much as he could and biting back a scream of pain when he struck his shoulder, Zack checked the edges of the tiny tomb-like space. There - one of her legs was half underneath the edge of a large chunk - and he felt the wetness of blood. Feeling even more carefully, his fingers found the gash in her pant leg and then the torn skin and shredded muscles soaked in fresh and half-congealed blood, and the sharp metal that sank down to bite right into her shattered bone. [Double shit! - stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding-] he yanked open his jacket to rip apart his shirt underneath, it was probably the cleanest thing he had - and packed the injury as best he could, blocking the ooze. Her other leg was bent up underneath her, and not at the knee - he could feel shreds of bone sticking through the bloody skin and her hips seemed fractured as well.

[She's dying,] he thought in panic, [and I can't do a damned thing to help.]

Then he used the last torn strip to secure his arm - the shoulder blade was broken, he could feel the halves grinding together every time he moved, and the bones in his upper and lower arm had probably been broken as well. He could feel that much through the swelling that had already engulfed his arm. His own skin had been scorched by the blast, but he just didn't care about his own state. He couldn't lift the offending chunk off her worst-hurt leg, it was just too heavy and it was jammed in tightly by unknown amounts of added debris packed on top. He still tried, however, more than once, in between re-checking her breathing and pulse and an extremely careful exam of her torso.

Her skin was hot, most of it had blistered from the flash of intese heat, and there was the bad sign of her stomach and ribcage having swollen tight. She had burns, too, and most of her clothes had burned halfway off. [How close was she to the detonation?] He tried not to wonder. He couldn't see if there was any bruising, but it felt tender enough that he was sure Lyta had cracked if not broken ribs, and just how much internal damage was possible was staggering - not just from the fall, but also being stuck by the impact, debris and then his own landing. That her spine and skull were damaged, even broken, was a given. To make things even worse, he couldn't get her to wake up. It was all he could do to just stay off of her in the cramped space, and it was getting hotter and harder to breathe. Whether that was because of a fever, his own nerves or a fire spreading through the wreckage, he didn't know.

Frustration growing, he had tried to do everything he could, but he was having to face the rather distinct possibility that she was going to die right here beside him, that he wasn't going to be able to save her. Added was the equally likely chance that he was going to die right alongside of her. There wasn't anything he could do. Zack hated not being in charge of a situation.

[Hatred,] the inspired thought suddenly came. [I've been trying to keep calm, to ignore the pain - some of the telepaths might have made it out, they must have at least started to search by now!] Summoning up all the brain power he could, he concentrated on the loudest, most desperate mental yell that he could. Then he kept it up, frantic to get Lyta out of their space and into a hospital as hard as he could.

****

"There!" several of the searchers shout in unison, and began to climb over the piles to get above them as quickly as possible. "He's there! She's just underneath!"

In what seemed to be the longest hours of any of their lives, they tore through the wreckage, going down as fast as safely possible. A tenuous link with Zack helped - slightly - to reassure him, but none of them could hide the fact that they were just as afraid as he was of Lyta's impending death if they did not get to the pair of them before the skull-faced dark one did, and their black-robed opponent sat crouched on a shattered leg that still leaked vital blood, his scythe resting deeply into a broken spine and remnants of bone.

She was still alive when they pulled the two of them out.

****